Author's note: Wow, you guys are lucky! Two chapters in two days!
It was early August now, and on a weekend afternoon Aro and I stayed together under one of the trees in the private garden.
We had originally intended to head into florence, as I wanted to visit another bookstore and Aro apparently had business to attend to there, but we were somehow not capable of leaving the garden that day at all. It was one of those dreamy days when anything you thought you would do just goes out the window, and you find yourself in that "nothing" place, where time seems to stand still. He had removed his suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, while I was just dressed in a simple sundress, my sandals lying discarded somewhere in the grass. I was lying across his lap with my head resting against his stomach, cold hands combing through my hair slowly. He was very quiet that afternoon, just content to sit in silence. I couldn't understand how he could not sweat, or how his body stayed so cool in warm temperatures like this. Maybe it was just because he was so acclimated to it.
I was looking at the stone bench, the grass growing carefully around its perimeter, how little of it grew where the sun didn't shine at all. My mind was not as peaceful as our surroundings, and of course Aro noticed it.
"Is there something on your mind?" he asked, and when I turned around in his lap to face him, his eyes were still closed. I licked my lips once and thought about how to ask him.
"Aro, is Volterra a...dangerous place?"
His hands stopped moving through my hair, but they remained there as his eyes opened a fraction to peer down at me.
"No, not for you. " he said, which made me frown.
"What do you mean?" I asked as he continued to look at me, not blinking.
"You will never have anything to fear, my little combattente. That is what I mean."
"I don't – I mean I'm not. "
"Then why ask?"
I was about to tell him then about the screams. But when I opened my mouth to answer, I found myself suddenly mute. I shook my head against his stomach, facing away from him once more.
"Nevermind, it was just a silly question."
Why didn't I trust him? For that was the reason why I didn't tell him anything – because something in my gut told me not to. But there was no reason for that. He had already done so much for me, even saved my life.
Later, when the sun came down, we went back inside the domed building – but instead of leaving it, Aro took me by the hand and led me up a flight of narrow stairs. I blinked a few times, confused.
"What is this, where are we going?"I asked, my voice echoing around us.
"To my home."
I was somewhat surprised that he lived in the same building where he worked every day – most people wished to seperate their work and their private life. The stairs ended two stories up, and if I wasn't in such great shape I would have felt a little winded. And it was not like what I had imagined.
I had not asked to see where he lived before, mostly because I felt that I did not have the right. Our relationship was not what you would call normal so far – and not a word of love had been uttered by either one of us.
Even though I had seen it, clear as a day in his eyes many times by now. I did not know what he saw in mine. There were other things that told me what he felt – along with a strange, powerful feeling that came over me whenever we were alone.
The things I felt for him were hard for me to convey, but I don't think he cared. He never asked much of me at all, in fact.
When he pushed open the heavy door that lead to his apartment, I could scarsely believe that this is where he spent his free time. I had expected something equally extravagant as his office, or perhaps something similar in style to my own apartment. Instead it was different, almost spartan compared to what else I had seen.
The walls had no colors – that is, they looked as if they had been the same color for centuries. The whole apartment in fact looked old – not a trace of modern anemneties at all. There was no television, no electric lights in the ceiling. If he did use candles, I could hardly see any around. The furnishings were old too, but kept in good condition.
I looked back at him, my eyes questioning as I moved around the living room, my hand moving over the back of the couch covered in copper-red satin. But he would not say anything, just smile.
But he stopped smiling when I came to stop and stare in the doorway of his bedroom.
It wasn't strange or very eye-catching, that was not why I was staring. But I noticed that there were no pictures anywhere – of friends or family, at all. The bed itself was beautiful, but looked like it had seen a fire once – the four poster structure looked charred in places, and the bed covers looked immaculate, in a similar color of the couch. But the room looked blank, like nothing.
I realized that it did not reveal anything personal about himself at all.
Later that night we made love, in his bed. He was more forceful than before, and with no lights around other than from the open window, his angular limbs looked pale blue. He looked almost like a ghost, and just as cold to the touch. Adamant on haunting me, on getting underneath my skin as much as possible.
But when I tugged at his hair, his eyes blazed and came alive – and a tender emotion flickered there briefly, before it was gone. Like he carried on some great sadness inside him that he did not know what to do with. I found myself saying comforting words as he rocked against me, but what for I did not know. What can you possibly be sorry for?
